The founder of virtual worlds pioneer Improbable says he is preparing to emigrate to Dubai as the Chancellor prepares to introduce an ‘entrepreneur tax’.
CEO Herman Narula, 37, was born in India and is now a UK citizen. He founded Improbable, valued at £2.5 billion in its last funding round in 2022, at the age of 29.
Narula, whose stake in the business is worth £780m, slammed Rachel Reeves’s plan to prevent entrepreneurs from avoiding tax by shifting their riches to lower-tax jurisdictions. It effectively taxes capital gains when an individual leaves the UK and takes up residency elsewhere.
Such ‘settling-up’ charges are common in other countries, but Narula told the Telegraph that he is dead set against the UK following suit.
“I don’t particularly want to leave the UK – but I might want to one day and I don’t want to be banned from that option,” he told the publication.
Slamming the move as “irresponsible”, “anti-entrepreneur” and “bonkers”, he said it ”has forced a lot of people to leave”.
Revolut founder Nikolay Storonsky is also moving his primary residence to the United Arab Emirates.
“The impression I am left with is that the country doesn’t want immigrants, especially not ones that start companies,” said Narula.
A Treasury spokesman told the Telegraph: “We do not comment on speculation around changes to tax outside of fiscal events.”
Improbable has been the UK’s poster child for virtual worlds technology for more than a decade but only achieved profitability for the first time in 2023.
The London company’s losses were in the hundreds of millions in 2020 and 2021 before it adopted a more targeted operating model in 2022 – disposing of its gaming division Multiplayer Group and its defence and national security business.